There's a Tear in My Beer

Dear New Jersey Port People,

When loading 40,000 pounds of spendy imported beer, it might be a good idea to wrap it up more tightly and perhaps, oh I don't know, block it in with something so it can't tip over. 

Sincerely,

A Tumbleweed Crying Over Spilled Beer.

***

Most often, the trailers we pick up are loaded and sealed, like this one. We have no control over whether it is loaded by morons or masterminds.

Mostly, the stuff we get is loaded really well. Some places use giant plastic air bags to fill in the space between pallets. Would have worked really well here, but I guess the people at the New Jersey port had better things to do that day.

We aren't held liable for loading problems, but usually it is left up to us to dispose of the damaged contents.

This has worked in our favor several times, because food companies will reject a damaged outer carton even if the product itself isn't damaged. 

I'm not too proud to eat a bag of potato chips that came from a dented box. Plus, I hate to see perfectly good stuff go to waste. 

Before the beer, the last damaged thing we had was diapers. We're too old for babies and too young to use them ourselves, so we gave them to a truck stop janitor who could use them.

It's not uncommon to find truckers driving around a truck stop trying to give away something they have have no need or room for. We've been on both sides of this transaction: we've gotten rid of eleventy tons of napkins and diapers this way and received 7 cases of mini peppers, 783 granola bars, and 40 packs of gum.

But do you think they let us keep the damaged cartons of beer? Oh nooooo. The warehouse guys assured us that they would be glad to get rid of it for us and that we shouldn't worry our pretty little heads about it.

***

Tumbleweed Fact:

Pilsner Urquell, the beer that was so rudely loaded, is a tasty beer all by itself, but it's also a fantastic mixer with a dry champagne.

Tall glass
Half beer
Half champagne

It's called a Herrengedeck and it's a Tumbleweed Tradition.

You're welcome.

***

Coincidentally, Grolsch makes a
fine Herrengedeck too!

I launched 'spilled beer' into the Google and came up with this website that has crazy pictures of truck spills. They haven't updated in a while, but it's worth a look. I would *definitely* rather clean up some broken beer bottles than rotting pig carcasses (carcai?).